Heroes’ Corner

Yes, indeed, after several days’ trial to prove the proposition beyond doubt, life does continue after ninety-one. And it seems to go well enough, despite the limitations of being more or less housebound, and under the narrow-minded prescription of a deeply unloved walking-frame. This, in case you don’t know, is an externally-worn supplementary skeleton of the human body, from the waist down, crafted mainly from stainless steel and plastics. Since it has no visible head, science is still working on the problem of where it generates its unmistakable impulses of spite, at suburban street corners and gutters, or at any uneven patches in the Botanic Gardens pathways.

But the main contributor to my state of (comparative) contentment is my commodious upstairs combined office and sleeping quarters, which my family has so generously supplied and equipped.

The strictly “office” section is impressively fitted out with computer, printer, copier,  telephones (both mobile and desk sets), answering machines, power-boards, and every gizmo that winks and blinks, buzzes or beeps. All of those, together with a terrifying spaghetti-tangle of fine wires on the carpet under the computer table, offer a communications capacity which I am quite unable to use competently, but which is ample for me to get myself into hopeless jungles and morasses. A hyper-kindly and understanding family has helped me out of them—so far. But I shall have to try harder. It won’t be easy, for I was no keen recruit to the “communication revolution” of years ago; on the contrary, I was dragged sullen and resentful at its cart-tail. It would dismay me little if some great social or natural change (say, global warming?!) returned all our correspondence to the old bushman’s use of “a thumb-nail dipped in tar”. My worries!

In this sacred chamber live in quiet amity all my collections of encyclopaedias and dictionaries of sundry languages, and other basic references (including, of course, Gibbon and Bacon and Doctor Samuel Johnson). Here, relaxed along about ten metres of shelf, is a much-consulted set of the grand Australian Dictionary of Biography. Volume 1 came out in 1966; the latest, Volume 18, in 2012. Is it unreasonable to ask MUP (and its other now associated scholarly bodies) to extract a finger? Just when may we look forward to seeing Volume 19 there on the bookshop shelves, awaiting our purchase?

There is an alcove we call “Heroes’ Corner”. Some of the pictures that hang there are photographically on the rough side, obviously cut with a razorblade from highly plein air originals shot by our internationally famed photographer Damien Parer. All of them are men; all were very well known to me personally, as indeed was Damien himself.

One of the white men “rough hung” in Heroes’ Corner is kiap Leigh Vial. He wears his peacetime administration officer’s bush hat; on his face, a week’s worth of unshaven whiskers, and a grin.

When the Australians abandoned the little port of Salamaua early in 1942, the Japanese took it over, with its still fully-functional airstrip; this they used for staging flights of their bombers southward to raid Port Moresby, the main Australian base in the region. Here the defenders would have been immensely helped by advance warning of the departure of enemy squadrons from Salamaua to hammer them. But how? The following story has been absurdly simplified for short telling, but it remains a true account: Leigh Vial, alone, took himself to live among the foliage of the tall trees that commanded a good view of the Salamaua airstrip. He eluded the enemy there for months, but no departing force of bombers eluded his keen but often sleepless eyes.

The lives of hundreds—more likely thousands—of Australian servicemen were saved because Vial’s warnings had them in their slit trenches when the bombs hit, dropped from bombers flying so high as to be almost invisible. The actual details of Leigh’s operations were kept the sternest secret, but the young soldiers (many barely eighteen years old, many younger still) knew that someone was looking after them, and they dubbed him “The Golden Voice”.

Leigh was soon recruited into the RAAF, and moved from Salamaua to greater things at HQ in Port Moresby. He was a man of immense capacity and integrity, whatever the task of the moment may be. It was comforting for me later to have him in Port Moresby to report to from my own lonely bush patrols. We only once discussed at any length his Salamaua exploits, and clearly he appreciated that the ranks had given a name and an identity of their own to this mystery friend behind enemy lines.

Leigh Vial, the boy born in 1904 in Melbourne’s suburban Camberwell, died on duty in an air crash in the rugged mountains of New Guinea’s Huon Peninsula. His plane “went in” on April 30, 1943. He was one of our great heroes, and the least “pushy”.

Two other white men of New Guinea distinction are James Lindsay Taylor and John Black. Famous already in peacetime for their patrols into the populous but unpenetrated highlands, they were still in the field when the Pacific War began, but playing roles of military service and gallantry. In my picture they resemble two tweedy old clubmen, still with a lively grip on life. It was taken when we were all in Canberra in the 1970s.

The most interesting face belongs undoubtedly to Singin Pasom. (By the time this picture was taken, always known as “Papa” Singin.) His face, strong and characterful, is ringed wholly in white, where curly crisp beard merges with curly crisp hair. In 1942 he was headman of a village in the hinterland hills of Lae, where there could be no telling whether an Australian or a Japanese patrol would next appear along the track. Singin’s “diplomacy” kept us apart for months, undeniably to our high mutual advantage. He had a wonderful variety of natural talents, and it was no surprise whatever to see him as a Member of Papua New Guinea’s first National House of Assembly. Here he was, orating away in passionate pidgin, smart with collar and tie, shoes and long white socks!

Over his photo-frame here is draped a bilum, that universal village carry-all (anything from a baby to a load of potatoes). A specially carefully crafted one may be made a present, a token of friendship and esteem. When my daughter Sally was married in Melbourne, the Singins sent a message of good wishes, which I read to the company, and a bilum, which I hung in the traditional way around her neck—in sharp homespun contrast to her white satin wedding gown.

If I have left till last the photographs I call “the two Lance-Corporals” it is not for want of regard—perhaps the reverse, for we endured much together. Kari, a magnificent human specimen, was about twenty-five, from Manus, powerful muscles rippling under shining coal-black skin. He commanded my little squad of six tough coppers from the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary. Watute, light brown of skin as the Waria River people usually are, was also slight of build. Heaven knows how old he was, for he had served in the German force, and they went out in 1914. His photo was taken in his home village, in his decades-overdue retirement. He had scraped together a good simulation of a uniform, but all his medals and decorations were perfectly in order.

Younger Kari had gone from strength to strength in the Force, and had led the Papuan contingent to London for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth. He is photographed in the new police uniform of navy and scarlet, chest ablaze with medals, decorations and awards. He came down to stay with us in Melbourne, to the family’s great joy and excitement, and was received by the Chief Justice and the Lord Mayor. (He was also received, at his own request, by the Governor of Pentridge Prison, with whom Kari wished to compare some crime statistics.)

Perhaps I have lingered overlong and overlovingly in Heroes’ Corner. That is certainly not what draws the swift attention of most of my first-time visitors, who home instantly in upon the large street-poster of the Age newspaper of August 26, 1993. It has been laminated to a stout board, and it shouts loudly in huge letters:

MANNING
CLARK’S
WORK
CANNED

Well, what’s wrong with a joke shared with old friends?